Earth to Echo borrows some of its plot and mood from
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and
Super 8.

Which isn’t necessarily bad.

The earlier sci-fi films revolve around children reaching out to alien life — in place of adults
too jaded or opportunistic to be trusted.

So goes
Earth to Echo, too.

For good measure, the script packs a bit of
Stand by Me — in which extraordinary events create a lifelong bond among best friends.

The effort then morphs from good-natured adventure to ill-conceived heart-tugger.

The premise qualifies as predictable: Three teenage boys — Alex (Teo Halm), Tuck (Brian “Astro”
Bradley) and Munch (Reese Hartwig) — live in suburban Las Vegas, with their lives centering on
social media and the ugly specter of government intervention.

Alex, a foster child accustomed to goodbyes, is moving again because of a federal program buying
up houses for undisclosed reasons.

The trio has just a week left together.

In the first of several plot points that strain the suspension of disbelief, the friends trace
the odd signals on their cellphones — after service is disrupted — to the Nevada desert.

They tell flimsy lies to their parents and head out on their bikes to solve the mystery.

What they find is a cute alien that resembles a tiny, metallic owl, with glowing blue eyes and
the ability to echo sounds it hears. Hence, they dub it “Echo.”

The creature quickly learns to answer “yes” and “no” questions, and the boys soon understand
that it needs metallic parts to heal its injuries and wants to go home.

The parts come from unlikely places: barns, a pawnshop, a junkyard — with each new site little
more than an excuse to shift the scenery.

One exception: the home of Emma (Ella Wahlestedt), who is shoehorned into the story to provide a
change of pace from the tiresome male banter.

A gang of orange-vested construction workers is tracking the youths — and, aware of the jammed
phones and the alien, desperately seeking to keep everything a secret.

Close calls follow new discoveries until the plot is exhausted.

Earth to Echo is built on the “found footage” model of moviemaking, with the filming and
editing supposedly the work of the teens. One camera is stuck on a bike, another is embedded in a
pair of glasses, and a third is passed around.

The footage is then heavily manipulated, digitized and edited as if processed in a blender —
ultimately yielding jittery scenery and only a jumble of faces.

Tuck serves as the narrator, but Alex emerges as the central character.

The eccentricities of Munch make him an “acquired taste,” so he gets most of the punch
lines.

In the end, though, audience members are left with characters known only through cyberspace —
and, as a result, have little interest in any of them.

First-time feature director Dave Green uses small effects nicely.

The alien, especially well-done, should charm even cynics.

Yet the live-action family film, with its low-watt stars and small budget, might have worked
better without the three tear-jerking scenes and, for the finale, the overblown use of
computer-generated images.